The wait for the Congress to announce its nominations is only growing lengthier as the burden of last year’s delimitation process falls heavily on all three of its incumbent MPs from the state, even as the BJP declared 11 candidates on Saturday for Assam’s 14 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The last time around, the Congress had won three seats and the BJP had won nine.
Due to modifications resulting from the delimitation process, two Congress parliamentarians, MPs Gaurav Gogoi of Kaliabor and MP Pradyut Bordoloi of Nagaon, are now competing for the Nagaon seat, and MP Abdul Khaleque of Barpeta is requesting a ticket from Dhubri, despite the party’s apparent desire to field MLA Rakibul Hussain of Samaguri from the seat.
In the midst of objections from opposition parties and numerous community organizations, the Election Commission (EC) finalized the delimitation of Assam’s legislative and Lok Sabha seats in August of last year. This was the first such exercise since 1976. The Opposition’s claim that constituencies had been changed in a way that concentrated minority voters in a small number of seats, lowering the number of segments where they might play a large role, was one of the most hotly debated arguments. With the exception of the northeastern regions and Jammu & Kashmir owing to concerns with peace and order, the nation’s last delimitation exercise was completed in 2002. After obtaining advice from the Center indicating that the state’s peace and order situation had “significantly improved,” the poll panel proceeded with the exercise in Assam last year. The Center had established the Delimitation Commission in March 2020.
In the BJP, too, the delimitation had created rifts as four-time Nagaon MP and former Union minister Rajen Gohain resigned as chairman of the Assam Food and Civil Supplies Corporation Limited. He claimed that four Assembly segments from the Kaziranga seat had been added to his seat, making it “minority-dominated.”According to Assam Congress chairman Bhupen Borah, “three and a half Assembly seats from Kaliabor (as Kaziranga was previously called) were merged into Nagaon, while another three and a half segments from Nagaon were merged with Kaziranga, resulting in reshuffling in both seats,” as reported by The Indian Express. The party leadership will ultimately decide who will run for the seat since Gogoi and Bordoloi are devoted to the party’s philosophy. Personally, I think they need to run for the two seats.
Borah stated that the leadership has selected a candidate and refuted rumors regarding the Dhubri seat. The seat is now held by Badruddin Ajmal, the leader of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), although it has been expanded to include a large geographic region by adding several minority-dominated Assembly seats from Barpeta, which typically elects minority candidates.
Khaleque’s desire to switch seats is probably motivated by the knowledge that the minority community would no longer have a deciding influence in Barpeta. The MP claims that because of the constituency redistricting, Dhubri is now his home seat.
According to sources, Khaleque even wrote to AICC Assam in-charge Jitendra Singh Alwar to voice his dissatisfaction with the way the party was run. He also allegedly claimed that Hussain’s candidacy was decided upon before being reviewed by the party’s central and state election committees.
